


Evenly Matched (?)

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: Sometimes Sho really hates the Arrangement.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2012.

Nino and Sho are immortal enemies, thwarting each other every chance they get, but that doesn’t stop them from getting together and discussing the state of human culture (Sho) and getting really, really drunk (Nino).

The Arrangement works out quite nicely this way.

**1002, HEIAN-KYOU, JAPAN**

“Here, Nino, listen to this,” Sho nudged the sleeping demon with a socked foot. He’d done the embroidery on them himself and took every moment he could to show them off.

“What?” Nino rolled over, pulling his robes around him with a growl. “If it’s another one of your haiku, I don’t want to hear it.”

“But this time it’s really good!” Sho knew he was whining, but he was really proud of himself this time. He thought he could even rival that Shonagon woman with this one.

“If I listen, will you go away and leave me alone?” Nino half-opened an eye, glaring up at the little bit of Sho he could see.

“Of course,” Sho bowed slightly as Nino sat up with a grunt. Sho frowned a little, eyeing Nino’s robes. Well. He couldn’t really say they were _Nino’s_.

“Were you with a woman again?” Sho blushed and turned away at Nino’s wicked smile. “Never mind! Just listen to me.”

Sho cleared his throat and clasped his hands in front of his stomach, resting them on the front of his red silk robe. “Cherry trees swaying/The river devoid of fish/Death is in the air.”

Nino groaned and fell back onto his futon. “Aren’t you supposed to be the cheery one?”

Sho raised himself to his full height, all 5’7” of him. “Poetry,” he began, “is about revealing one’s inner self, about showing something other than what is on the surface, about _challenging_ yourself – ” He stopped talking abruptly then, because Nino’s pillow hit him square in the face.

“Get out if you don’t have any sake with you,” Nino spoke up, his voice cross.

Sho sighed and pulled out a carafe from somewhere within his robes. Nino grinned and gestured to the pillow that he’d thrown.

“I would’ve been much more eager to listen if you had pulled that out before, you know,” Nino stretched out a leg to poke Sho’s knee with a naked toe. Sho grimaced, his lips pursing and his nose wrinkling, as he poured them both shallow dishes of sake. 

“If I had shown you the sake, you wouldn’t have paid any attention to me at all! I know you, demon.” They clinked their dishes together and Sho sipped calmly as Nino already began to reach for the carafe to refill his.

“I would’ve let you speak without interruption and that’s all you want, anyway,” Nino smiled down at his refilled saucer and Sho couldn’t really argue with that.

**1584, LONDON, ENGLAND**

"Well, I didn't like that at all," Sho complained, brushing the remains of peanut shells off of his doublet. "Unnecessarily vulgar. And all the blood! Shows like that should be banned."’

“I thought it was great,” Nino poked Sho in the side (not that Sho noticed, his doublet as voluminous as it was), before glaring down at the crusted mud on his black leather boots, relaxing when it disappeared. Sho tsked.

"Yes, well," Sho finished fixing his clothes with a severe straightening of his ruff, "You would." They looked like a strange pair; Nino was wearing head to toe black velvet, including a black ruff that Sho secretly believed makes him look like a malnourished marionette puppet. Sho was sporting a barett hat that had been quite fashionable about forty years earlier with no small amount of pride.

"I liked the part where they baked her children into a pie," Nino smoothed his black gloves over his hands, "And made her eat it. Humans think of the worst things."

"Did it remind you of your upbringing?" Sho asked in reply, pursing his lips with disapproval. Of course he knew his job was to thwart evil while Nino’s was to cause evil, but that didn’t mean he wanted to _hear_ Nino’s inspiration.

"We had the same upbringing, _angel_ , did you forget?" Nino glanced at Sho, a smirk on his face. 

Sho was a big proponent of pacifism and lived a nonviolent life, but sometimes he really wanted to punch Nino in the face.

"Oh. Yes, that's right."

“Pub? I’m thirsty,” Nino gestured to the buildings around them, “The theater neighborhood always has the best cheap beer.”

“All the beer is cheap,” Sho replied with a grimace, “Can’t we go have some nice wine?”

Nino had already stepped into a filthy, grimy pub and Sho could already smell the blood that was stuck to the dirty straw covering the floor from past bar fights. He sighed, and resignedly followed Nino inside.

**1924, NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES**

"I'm really flattered you want me to do this," Sho said, pleased, as he ran his fingers over each individual key.

"Yeah, I don't really feel like playing the piano this time," Nino leaned against the instrument, fidgeting with one of the curlicues carved onto the side of the instrument. It was a beautiful piano made of dark wood stained a glossy mahogany, sitting in the middle of a darkened club. Nino sometimes sang jazz in random clubs for the fun of it, but he'd never invited Sho along before.

"Hmm, let's see...Gilbert and Sullivan? Strauss? Maybe let's avoid the Bachs for tonight," Sho suggested, trilling a triple in a high octave.

"Maybe let's let the singer plan the set," Nino shot back, rolling his eyes. "You are the least fashionable person to ever exist."

Sho had to wonder why they hired Nino of all people for _jazz_ singing. Nino had a lovely voice (all angels did, it was a requirement for the Music of the Spheres), but it was high and thin. He was more suited to vaudeville (not that Sho would ever admit that he kind of liked vaudeville. It reminded him of the tamer parts of Sodom and Gomorrah before the brimstone). Or maybe musicals, though Sho wasn't sure if Nino danced and he didn't really want to find out.

Obediently, Sho took the sheet music and prepared himself to perform.

He was not prepared mid-performance for Nino to thump on a secret panel inside the piano to pull out a flask of what smelled like turpentine but was probably gin, nor for that to be the signal for the entire speakeasy to pull out their own matching flasks.

Sho watched the waiters calmly set out ice buckets on each table, into which patrons plunged their backup flasks.

Sho played the rest of the set with his head down low to the keys, his face burning with shame at breaking the law so flamboyantly as Nino’s singing turned more into slurred yelling.

What? He wasn’t about to quit playing. _He was a performer._

A performer who would have to go out and thwart at least five wiles to make up for this.

Sho wondered if it was time for the Apocalypse yet. Not that he _wanted_ war, far from it, but the Apocalypse was when he could get a moment of respite from Nino.

It turned out that the Apocalypse wasn’t going to happen that moment, unfortunately for Sho’s desires, because suddenly gin was slopping down his back and all he could hear was Nino’s laughter.

When the club got raided by the police that night, Sho was very pleased to hear Nino’s bitching about his favorite club getting shut down and where was he going to go for high quality moonshine _now_. Sometimes Sho didn’t mind the Arrangement. You keep up the tally long enough and it eventually evens itself out. That’s called ineffability, you see. You can’t second-guess ineffability.


End file.
